Engineering & Technology Chemical Engineering

A recyclable enzyme catalyst could support cleaner production of flavour esters for food, drink and cosmetics.

A new review charts the future of diacylglycerols for cleaner oil processing, functional foods and medical nutrition.

Researchers developed a highly filled liquid epoxy for chip packaging that remains easy to process despite its exceptionally high silica content. By optimizing particle packing, surface treatment, and rubber nanoparticle reinforcement, the material minimizes wafer warpage while maintaining excellent toughness and reliability during packaging.

Research comparing Dunlop and Talalay processing offers practical guidance for better natural latex foam products.

Fly ash waste could partly replace zinc oxide in tyre tread rubber, reducing zinc release while maintaining key performance.

A mild enzymatic method helps refine algae oil for nutrition products while preserving its valuable nutritional components

The end of colored plastic downgrading could be near with new approach

Catalysts play a vital role in the chemical reactions used to produce fertilizers, fuels, pharmaceuticals, and hydrogen, to name a few. AI-driven catalyst discovery is revolutionizing the field of materials science. But AI is only as reliable as the data it learns from. Therefore, researchers from Tohoku University have introduced an AI-powered digital catalysis platform that serves as a one-stop source for experimental data, theoretical calculations, and scientific literature.

Rice grown on the Moon? No, this is not something out of science fiction, but a future possibility thanks to a plasma technology developed by Tohoku University and JAXA. The plasma technology synthesizes gas from atmospheric air and turns it into a nitrogen-based fertilizer. Researchers also tested the fertilizer on rice seedlings planted in a lunar soil simulant, finding that the fertilizer released critical minerals from the Moon's soil while suppressing harmful ones. The technology is portable and energy-efficient, meaning it can even be used here on Earth for a more sustainable form of rice farming.

Researchers from The University of Osaka created stable cobalt-based honeycomb structures inside a layered material and observed ferromagnetic-like ordering at low temperatures. By introducing a small amount of cobalt into NaSbO3, the team demonstrated a new platform to study Kitaev materials using abundant 3d transition metals, potentially supporting future cost-effective quantum technologies.

Metal–amide chemistry provides a rational approach to controlling heavy-pnictogen reduction, paving the way for safer and more scalable semiconductor quantum dots.

Development of specialized "One-body" materials for dry processes maximizes battery performance and productivity.

Floatable beads made from chitosan and cellulose acetate and enhanced with bentonite were engineered to effectively clean oil from water. The beads showed good oil adsorption capacity while remaining easy to collect from the water surface.

In collaboration with Clarivate, Professor Nam-Gyu Park’s research team highlights the rapid growth of solid-state implementation since its first successful realization in 2012

Researchers from National Taiwan University and Chulalongkorn University developed a copper-based catalyst system that improves low-temperature methanol synthesis from carbon dioxide hydrogenation by balancing two key steps in the reaction.

Single monomer containing thiolactone and pyridyl disulfide molecules allows for variable polymer functionalities

This study introduces a co-assembly strategy using two newly designed donor–acceptor self-assembled materials, LYS-H and fluorinated LYS-F, to overcome aggregation, wettability, interfacial contact, and crystallinity limitations of Me-4PACz in inverted perovskite solar cells. The fluorinated LYS-F delivers a power conversion efficiency of 25.02%, a fill factor of 83.64%, and improved ambient stability, highlighting its strong potential for the future commercialization of high-efficiency perovskite photovoltaic technologies.

Through protein binding, molecular heavy drugs are effectively transported to cancerous tissues

Researchers at The University of Osaka have created highly transparent wood without plastic additives and revealed that its clarity depends on structural direction. Alkali treatment softens cellulose-based cell walls, allowing internal cavities to collapse during drying and reduce light scattering. Tangential sections become more transparent than radial ones due to anisotropic swelling and densification. The findings offer new design principles for sustainable transparent materials in buildings and advanced devices.

Japanese researchers have developed a living sensor display that turns engineered skin into a biological monitor, visually indicating internal inflammation without requiring blood sampling.

Researchers at the Nano Life Science Institute (WPI-NanoLSI), Kanazawa University, report in ACS Nano the successful creation of artificial synaptic vesicles that can be remotely controlled by near-infrared (NIR) light. By embedding a phthalocyanine dye into lipid bilayers, the team achieved local heating that modulates membrane permeability, enabling precise release of neurotransmitters such as acetylcholine. These findings demonstrate that nanoscale heating can control communication between nerve cells. The work opens new avenues for non-genetic modulation of neuronal activity, with potential applications in neuroscience, drug delivery, and bioengineering.

Researchers at the Nano Life Science Institute (WPI-NanoLSI), Kanazawa University, report in the Journal of the American Chemical Society the use of three-dimensional atomic force microscopy (AFM) and molecular dynamics simulations to determine the structure of water in the hydration of different types of chitin nanocrystals, and how this affects their mechanical properties, reactivities, and interactions with enzymes and reactants.

Researchers at the Nano Life Science Institute (WPI-NanoLSI), Kanazawa University, report in ACS Nano, how proteins in cells can be controllably activated through heating, an effect that can be used to initiate programmed cell death.

Researchers from the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, have developed nanoscale ‘molecular flasks’ based on single molecules of bottlebrush polymers to carefully control polymerization reactions in extremely small spaces

Cyborg jellyfish, 3D collagen, Light, light go away, AI electronic nose, FLASHing cancer, Hydrogen storage in nanoscales & Can I drink this? Read all in the latest Editor's Choice

Researchers at the Nano Life Science Institute (WPI-NanoLSI), Kanazawa University observe and model how the enzyme ADAR1 interacts with double-stranded RNA, which may be useful for future cancer treatment strategies.

Improved production of compounds from methanol and Komagataella phaffii yeast achieved through DNA alteration

Portable technology offers instant, power-free ethanol detection across concentrations

The power conversion efficiency of all-organic solar cells was doubled through the development of novel organic electrodes that can be fabricated using a moderate process.

Researchers at Nano Life Science Institute (WPI-NanoLSI), Kanazawa University, observe the configuration of different dipeptides on graphite electrodes and the subsequent arrangement of catalytic hemin on them to get an idea of the factors affecting its catalytic activity.